Analysis Of Digipak ; Florence And the Machine

Florence and the machine has a great way of showing the audience on how she wants to base her theme on. I really like the way she uses the lungs as the main idea of her digipak, she uses the lungs really effectively through the use of her picture. The front of the picture has a picture of lungs outside her body to emphasis the main point of her digipak. In addition to that she has a clear picture of her self which allows the audience to be able to recognise the artist. Furthermore the use of the lungs draws attention to consumers as it catches their eyes and they may want to find out more about how the artist is. This relates to our genre as florence and the machine is an artist which shares similar looks to our character. Overall the digipak is very effective and it has great ideas on the cover.

Ancillary; Making the Mock Up; Using Photoshop.

To make our mock up of our ancillary products, we had a choice to either draw our models or make some images using existing photos from our music video, and edit them on PhotoShop. I chose to PhotoShop as I have some knowledge on it in my previous years of studying Graphics and Photography (and because I suck at drawing, but lets not get in to that!).

 

This image shows the layers on the ancillary picture; this shows the changes and filters I have put on the picture. Layers 1, 2 and 3 are colour filters in which they change the effect shown on the picture. I change effect style and opacity so it is not a solid colour. You can also see the text layers. I chose two different fonts for the artist name and album name, so you can differentiate from the two so you can recognise the artist as whole, not just when you see her album name. If the artist were to produce more singles and albums, we would use the same font we used for the artist on this album, on the other albums so you recognise the artist and familiarise yourself with their previous albums.

 

The picture on the left is one of the tools that can be used in Photoshop. The ones highlighted are the ones that I used the most and which made the actual picture. The first highlighted one is the Colour Picker; I picked any colour from any bit within the actual photo, so I have a colour scheme which goes with the album. The colours which were picked out were a mix, so I copied the HTML code so I don't forget the colour scheme.

The next tool I used the most was the Text tool; this is the most obvious important tool to be used for the ancillary product. Without this, the audience will not know the artist name, album name, the tracks within it and the copyright information, which would have caused trouble and confusion for everyone. Unless they are a very known, global singer - like Usher, Calvin Harris, etc - there needs to be something that lets people know who the artist is, to create a opening for them in the market. The concept for this project was to introduce a brand new artist and their video; how can we do this if the audience do not know who the artist is?

The last tool I used the most was for the solid colour layer, and it was the Gradient Filler. I made sure to make a new layer, so I can adjust the layer settings without destroying the actual picture. After I made a new layer and coloured the layer, I adjusted the settings and opacity, which is shown in above right picture. The setting I used the most was Screen and Lighten, as these work best lightening and adding a vintage effect to the picture.

My overall experience making the mock up kind of scared me making the actual product. I had so many ideas, that in the end I didn't know which would look good and what wouldn't. My group also had a problem. We did not have any pictures to use for the ancillary as we had our photo shoot later on, so we had to use stills from the videos we shot and try to work with that. They worked well but it was too pixelated and so it did not look professional; a weakness of editing on the computer. But when we had the photoshoot, we made sure the artist posed in how we wanted her to for our ancillary. Although she was not wearing the right clothing, we worked with we got and in the end produced some really good pictures. I think my mock up will be different to my actual ancillary due to the pictures we took.

Research and analysis

Research

Three artists: Kate Perry, Florence and the machine, Lilly Allen


k Kate Perry digipak.

You can that the digipak follows the convention:
She has the three main colours, baby pink, light blue and frosty pink.
We can see that the front cover has a image of her and the artist name.
There is also a tracklist included, barcode and copy right information, web address of artist and producers, record label name posibly price.


Florence and the Machine

Lilly allen front cover

Florence and the Machine Digipak

Lilly allen

Analysis of digipaks ; Katy Perry

Katy Perry digipak

The front of digipaks are usually filled with the artist. This is to promote the star to sell the record and for the audience to feel connected with the song and the star.The digipak grabs the attention of the audiences eyes as it has firstly a clear picture of the singers face,which gives it the idea she is and artist who is trying to get her self out in the media industry. Furthermore the use of her wearing less close also grabs attention as in this day and age audience are intrigued by way the artists are dressed. Also the use of pink is given as a primary colour to establish her personality and the way she is trying to promote her music,it makes the audience aware of the theme she is trying to present. Overall the use of the clouds and pink gives it a 'girly' theme and targets the female audience. This relates to our genre as we have an idea where our artist is a diva character and shows commen interests to katy perry.

Summary on importance of Digipak

In our lesson the teacher explained us why digipaks are essential for a new artist. There are various ways in which an upcoming artist can be presented to the audience so he/she can be recognised. But the two ways in which we were told to get our artist known is by creating a album cover and a magazine advetisement. Digipaks are important as it provides a great way of fans getting access to the artists products. It is basically the main thing which the audience get to find out about the artists music. Here is one example of a digipak:

Summary of class discussion around the importance and function of digipaks to the industry

In class we talked about the importance and functions of digipaks to the music industry and this is what we learnt:

Using good IT skills is a must as the detailing, colour and layout of any work must catch the audiences eye especially if its a digipak as it must sell and be taken of the shelves and has to catch the audiences eye. Both following conventions and clear visual work is very important to as the audience needs to understand what they are seeing and reading and following is as important to in order to produce the best digipak.

The style of  a digipak should be:

3-4 colours max
no more than 2 different fonts
includes elements of graphic design-not simply images lifted from the video
must create some sort of visual link with advertisement

The inside of a digipak should have visual style (font, colour, design) established on the front of the digipak is continued on the inner panels.

A digipak is all about 'adding value' encouraging us to part with our money for something special and 'extra' plays o out love of music.

It should have a modern approach to CD packaging

Allows for inclusion of more information about the band/artist

production information:

Copyright; year of production
web address; record label logo/ name
distributor; producer; possibly price

Promotional Sticker

> Drawing attention to recent tour or special texture

Artists name:

Large, clear font , fore grounded

easy to read; same font for name used throughout digipak 

Ancillary; Advertisement one; Britney Spears

Britney Spears - Circus

One main thing which I noticed when looking at this poster is that this poster lacks a picture of Britney, and it lacks a picture of the actual album itself aswell. This is the main way in which Britney's advert differs to to other artists as Britney is very popular and well known, therefore she is trying to sell her album not get herself noticed by the audience. The poster seems to fit in with the 'circus' theme, creating a link between the poster and the album, therefore you would automatically associate the album and poster together. For example, the font is the same style on the album cover and the poster, especially as 'BRITNEY SPEARS' is written bigger than the actual album title on each of these. Another thing I noticed was that the poster includes that the album features "the #1 hit "Womanizer"" which made me decide to base this part of my research on the song which is included on the poster. However, there is not much link between the poster and video.